Bachelors Thesis Anies Langerak 11053046 25 june 2018 Word count: 9121 Gordon Arlen Eric Schliesser
Our pride and joy: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
Transgender, Intersex & Queer emancipation?!
The LGBTIQ agenda abused, as a tool against Islam.
Abstract
Once, the Netherlands was considered as the ideal emancipated society for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, and Queer (LGBTIQ) citizens. But now the Islamic religion is a threat to our society and our values, according to the Dutch Radical Right-wing populist party PVV. Thus, their homonationalist argument says that our gays need to be saved from the Muslims. But instead of being true to that argument and their caring attitude towards LGBTIQ emancipation, the PVV voted against five out of ten bills concerning LGBTIQ emancipation issues while Rutte II (2012-2017) was in office. The party used the LGBTIQ agenda for their fight against Islam but did not do much to improve the LGBTIQ emancipation when there was no gain in that battle for the party itself. This dishonesty leads to an abuse of the agenda of marginalized groups and is, therefore, harmful to their battle for a society in which LGBTIQ citizens enjoy the freedom and equality everyone deserves.
Introduction
The Dutch society used to be a safe haven for Lesbians and gays, until the barbarian Islamic immigrants came around and threatened ‘our’ lesbians and gays (Aydemir 2012: 188, 190). Or at least this argument is used by politicians on the Radical Right-Wing populist flank like Geert Wilders and his party Partij Voor de Vrijheid (PVV). This form of homonationalism has also been used in Dutch politics by Pim Fortuyn (Wekker 2016: 156).
Homonationalism is an interesting phenomenon because it combines Radical Right-Wing nativism and anti-immigration and anti-Islam stances with the argument that ‘they’ are a threat to ‘our’ liberal values of homo-emancipation (Akkerman, De Lange & Rooduijn 2016: 5). These arguments strengthen each other in both ways, but it is rather unclear which argument is predominant to the other. So, do anti-immigration/ anti-Islam stances result in the homonationalist argument; or does the homonationalist argument lead to anti-immigration and anti-Islam stances?
To put it differently, the question is: do Radical Right-Wing populist parties really care about Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex and Queer (LGBTIQ) citizens, and are they rooting for their emancipation or, do they have strong stances on anti-immigration and anti-Islam, and is the LGBTIQ agenda just a tool to get their argument strengthened and a way to attract votes?
The PVV voted against five out of ten bills regarding the LGBTIQ emancipation, so their stances on LGBTIQ emancipation are not obvious pro or con. But, voting against these bills may have harmed LGBTIQ emancipation. The main research question is: to which extent has the voting behavior of the PVV on LGBTIQ had a negative influence on their emancipation?
To address this question, I will examine the Dutch case; specifically, Government Rutte II (2012-2017). While this government was in office it addressed ten bills concerning LGBTIQ issues. In five out of these ten bills, the PVV voted against the bills. This is interesting because on the one hand, the party has used homonationalist arguments to call the Islam a threat to Dutch society and gay emancipation (Tweede Kamer 2014). But on the other hand, the party has voted in favor of emancipation of LGBTIQ citizens only in five out of ten times. That makes the PVV an interesting case because, besides the three Christian parties, all the other parties
voted in favor of the ten bills almost always (Rainbowvote 2017). Within the case section below is an elaborate overview of these ten bills.
This volatile voting behavior should cause citizens to question the PVV’s its honesty towards the LGBTIQ citizens and their emancipation. This point is especially significant because a lot of white gay men voted for the PVV back in 2010 (Wekker 2016: 156). The relevance of this paper is, thus, triplicated. Firstly, I argue that scholars of Dutch right-wing populism have reason to investigate which argument comes first: the nativist anti-immigration and anti-Islam stances or the homonationalist one. Secondly, I argue that scholars have reason to determine whether homonationalist arguments are being used by the nativist anti-immigration and anti-Islam stances, and to what extent LGBTIQ emancipation arises from it. In other words, does the fact that the PVV uses the LGBTIQ emancipation agenda lead to more inclusive and emancipated laws? And finally, if this is not the case, what harm does this strategy of the PVV do to the LGBTIQ emancipation?
Some people argue that the gay emancipation is finished, because of reaching almost all their goals (Wekker 2016: 162). I think it is fair to say that the emancipation has not reached all of the goals yet. Gay men face violence and threats on the streets (Politie 2013: 20), LGBTIQ asylum seekers are being threatened in asylum centers (Tweede Kamer 2016a), PrEP, the HIV prevention medication is still not available to gay men (Tweede Kamer 2016c), transgender and intersex citizens face discrimination in their daily lives (College voor de Rechten van de Mens 2014, 2015), and finally, the anti-discrimination act in the constitution still does not name LGBTIQ citizens as a specific group that is prohibited to discriminate against (Overheid 2017). It is rather fair to conclude that the LGBTIQ citizens are far from fully emancipated. This means that LGBTIQ citizens are marginalized groups that need further emancipation through laws that not only make life easier, but more importantly, equal. All the bills under examination in this paper were aimed at making life more equal to LGBTIQ citizens. That is
why it is so interesting to examine the voting behavior of the PVV, because they sporadically support, or do not support LGBTIQ emancipation. But when they do not support those bills, they are voting against already marginalized groups and are, thus, working against their emancipation; this fact has, therefore normative significance.
Theory
The theoretical basis of this paper lays in the theory of homonationalism. Homonationalism is a concept which has been defined and researched by Jasbir Puar (2007). She used this term to explain how American politics changed after 9/11. The United States created a narrative of exception of the nation-state in the war on terror. They constituted national sentiment, by temporarily suspending their heteronormative imagined community and by incorporating homosexual subjects (Puar 2007: 3-4). The main purpose of this new narrative is to make the whole nation-state believe this American exceptionalism, in this case on being tolerant to homosexuals (idem 5). A new form of nationalism is constituted around homonormativity, in which the homosexuals from the United States are in a better position than racial ‘others’ (idem: 39).
What Jasbir Puar notes, is that gay rights are used for Islamophobia, which results in a sexually more inclusive nation-state. In consequence, it leads to a more racially exclusionary nation-state (Zanghellini: 2012: 358). But in response to Aleardo Zanghellini and others who criticized her work, Jasbir Puar states that:
“Homonationalism, thus, is not simply a synonym for gay racism, or another way to mark how gay and lesbian identities became available to conservative political imaginaries; it is not another identity politics, not another way of distinguishing good queers from bad queers, not an accusation, and not a position. It is rather a facet of modernity and a historical shift marked
by the entrance of (some) homosexual bodies as worthy of protection by nation-states, a constitutive and fundamental reorientation of the relationship between the state, capitalism, and sexuality.” (Puar 2013: 337).
Even though the Netherlands never had a war on terror, homonationalism has been used, and maybe still is being used, against the Islam. Murat Aydemir (2012), states that back in 2005 there were two gay men living in Iran who were publicly hung for having sex with each other. The chairman (Frank van Dalen) of the Dutch COC, the gay and lesbian advocacy group of the Netherlands, initiated a petition. His aim was to let Dutch government send a strong message to the Iranian government. In Rita Verdonk he found his political ally because of her anti-Islam and pro-gay politics (idem: 189-190).
Verdonk and Van Dalen framed the international gay cause in a certain way so that it could be compared to young Dutch immigrant boys in the Netherlands who are known for bashing gays. Both are a threat to ‘our’ sexuality, because of ‘their’ culture (idem: 188, 190). Later, Van Dalen actively lobbied for accepting immigration of gay Iranian asylum seekers, while condemning Muslim immigrants who are living in the Netherlands for three generations (idem: 191).
This shows how homonationalism does not necessarily need to be nationalist or racist, in which the ethnic other is framed as the threat. It could also be the sexual individuality of the Iranian gay asylum seekers which makes them higher in social ranking than the Dutch Islamic immigrants who are already living here, because of ‘their’ culture (ibid). In other words, the ethnic background is not the only thing that matters. A measurement which could be used to rank citizens on is their sexual individuality; being LGBTIQ. Which in result shows how being an LGBTIQ immigrant makes your life worthier, than the lives of heterosexual immigrants.
The sex culture binary between Dutch natives and Islamic immigrants are framed as opposites. Van Dalen has this specific assumption in his politics: the gay Iranian must be Western because of his sexuality and must be already modern, while on the other hand, the imposed culture of the Islamic immigrants, will prohibit that they will ever become sufficiently Western (idem: 192-193). This is how he justifies his practice of lobbying for immigrant gays from an Islamic country while condemning on Dutch-Islamic immigrants.
Gloria Wekker (2016) critiques Dutch homonationalism, but even more the story we, ‘the Dutch’, tell about women and gay emancipation and how far we have come. Our national identity is partly formed by our progressive, ultramodern freed society in which the emancipation of women and gays is so crucial and sometimes marked as finalized (idem162). This is striking because the gay emancipation movement never paid very much attention to race, except for the opposition between the white gay men and the racial other heterosexual aggressors (idem 166). Even though the gay community is diversified in racial backgrounds, the dominant representation of gay and lesbian life has always been one of white members. An exception to this dominant division is the Islamic gay citizen who assimilates to white gay habits and who needs to be saved from their barbaric, aggressive heterosexual relatives (idem 168).
To understand in which ways homonationalism is being used, there is a need to understand the party background of populist parties. Populism is a contested concept with a lot of different conceptualizations. Different authors refer to populism as a doctrine, a political style or an ideology (Stanley 2008: 95-96). Author Cas Mudde (2004) comes up with the following conceptualization of populism:
“Populism as a [thin centered] ideology that considers society to be ultimately separated into two homogeneous and antagonistic groups, ‘the pure people’ versus ‘the corrupt elite’, and
which argues that politics should be an expression of the volonté générale (general will) of the people” (Mudde 2004: 543).
This thin centered ideology suits populism best as a concept because populism does not necessarily contain a concrete worldview. Rather, populism functions as a style of political rhetoric which can in principle be used for both leftwing and rightwing parties (Rooduijn en Akkerman 2015: 2). The main idea of populism is the so-called antagonistic group; the elite against the populous (Mudde 2004: 543).
A common form of populism is Radical Right-Wing populism. This type of populism is characterized by the following elements: authoritarian, nativist and populist elements (Akkerman, De Lange & Rooduijn 2016: 5). Authoritarianism is shown by a strong focus on law and order by parties. Nativism is a combination of nationalism and xenophobia. The ideology behind nativism is the belief that the only members of the state should be the native group. All non-native persons and ideas are a threat to the homogenous nation-state, and therefore should be excluded (ibid). This nativist element is leading towards anti-immigration and anti-Islam stances and anti-European Union integration. This anti-Islam stance stems from the idea that Islamic values are inherently against western liberal values, such as homo-emancipation (ibid).
At first, to be able to apply these theories about Radical Right-Wing populism and homonationalism to the PVV, there is a need to make sure they are part of the party-family. Akkerman, De Lange & Rooduijn (2016), published their research about Radical Right-Wing-Populism in Europe in a book. They defined 21 parties across Europe which have gained representation in European Parliament or national parliaments. The PVV is one of these 21 parties who are marked as Radical Right-Wing populist (Akkerman et al. 2016: 5).
To argue how and why the volatile voting behavior of the PVV is a threat to LGBTIQ emancipation, it is important to understand which core values are fundamental to the argument I will make later. The two core values are freedom and equality. The Netherlands is a country where most citizens are committed to freedom and equality. These core values are important for everyone to be able to live the life he or she wants. These two values contain a few important side values (Ministerie van Sociale Zekerheid en Werkgelegendheid 2014: 7).
Freedom of lifestyle is the first one. This means that everyone is free to design his or her own life, without any interference from others. Freedom also means accepting differences between people. But freedom is also limited by the other’s freedom (ibid). The second one is the right to self-determination. This means, among other things, that everyone is free to live by their sexuality and show their sexual orientation. But more importantly: everyone retains self-determination over their own body (idem: 8).
The second core value is gender equality, which means that the lives of all male and female citizens are equally valued. The first side value is equal treatment, which means that heterosexuals and homosexuals must be treated equally. On this basis, the circumstances in which gay and straight people live are equal, or at least look alike (idem: 9). The second side value prohibits discrimination. Since everyone must be treated equally, it is not allowed to discriminate on any grounds. Discriminating based on someone’s sexual orientation is against the fundamental core values (ibid).
Robert Dahl wrote in his book On Democracy (1998) about what it is that makes a democracy great. One of the features of democracy which makes it better than any other form of government is the value of intrinsic equality.
“To understand why it is reasonable to commit ourselves to political equality among citizens of a democratic state, we need to recognize that sometimes when we talk about equality we do
not mean to express a factual judgment. We do not intend to describe what we believe is or will be true, as we do when we make statements about winners of marathon races or spelling bees. Instead, we mean to express a moral judgment about human beings; we intend to say something about what we believe ought to be. One such moral judgment might be put this way: “We ought to regard the good of every human being as intrinsically equal to that of any other.” (Dahl
1998: 64-65).
Intrinsic equality means that everyone is equal, but also that one person’s life, liberty, and happiness is not superior or inferior to someone else’s. And in consequence, everyone can make an equal claim to their life, liberty, and happiness (idem: 65). This value is important to evaluate the effects of the voting behavior of the PVV and use this value in the analysis to argue for a more intrinsic equal life of LGBTIQ citizens.
To get a better understanding of how the PVV views certain events and policy issues, one of the media effects of Scheufele & Tewksbury (2007) is discussed below. Framing, agenda-setting, and priming are three important media effects (idem: 11). For this paper, only the framing part is important, because politicians are always trying to frame issues and events in a certain way. The way in which it tells the story that fits their own and their voter’s views. By doing this, politicians influence their voters as they evaluate an issue or event. Using social media to spread these frames of politicians has been proven successful (Hemphill, Culotta & Heston 2013: 6, 18-20). Because framing works so well, it could be a mechanism to gain votes.
A possible explanation of the volatile voting behavior of the PVV could be a rational vote-seeking strategy. Politicians who are framing issues or events in a certain way are trying to attract votes. This means that they are behaving rationally, as Anthony Downs (1957) has explained. Downs analyzed the political system as a rational model in which politicians and
political parties are only formulating policy as a means of gaining votes. The only reason they serve a special interest is to gain office and votes (Downs 1957: 137).
All the previous literature somehow relates to LGBTIQ emancipation. To get a better understanding on how all this literature relates to LGBTIQ emancipation, and to answer the question in what ways the LGBTIQ emancipation is under threat by the volatile voting behavior of the PVV, there is a need to conceptualize LGBTIQ emancipation. LGBTIQ emancipation aims to include sexual citizenship in the policy agenda. By including all the LGBTIQ citizens, policy should become more inclusive to them as well (Maliepaard 2015: 377-378).
Robinson (2012) states that Dutch society is formed by the following sentence: Doe
maar normal dan doe je al gek genoeg (act normal, as that is crazy enough). This means that
LGBTIQ citizens should assimilate to behaving as normally as the heterosexuals do. This is how normality works in the Netherlands, it means that being LGBTIQ is okay, if you make it invisible and assimilate to heterosexual norms (idem 331). This process works through the marginalization of the whole group of LGBTIQ citizens. But also makes another distinction between those who do conform to heterosexual gender roles and those who do not adjust. What happens in consequence, is that among those who assimilate, their sexuality gets banned to the private sphere and they stop questioning heterosexual institutions or gender norms (idem 333). To turn this process around, the emancipation of LGBTIQ citizens is a necessity. The conceptualization of emancipation in this paper is: emancipation policy should aim at improving equal rights and social acceptance of LGBTIQ citizens (COC Nederland 2017a).
But more importantly, there is a need to transform the heterosexual assumptions, instead of including LGBTIQ sexualities into them. The issue with inclusion strategies is that they are trying to incorporate LGBTIQ citizens in normative frameworks. But, by doing so, what is being ignored is that these frameworks are socially constructed to exclude LGBTIQ
citizens. By trying to incorporate and assimilate LGBTIQ citizens in these frameworks, they continue to favor heterosexual values, desires and gender norms, instead of questioning and transforming them (Donaldson 2015: 134).
Research Method
This paper will contain two parts. The first part is a literature review of the different theoretical phenomena. The second part is the analysis of the five bills concerning LGBTIQ issues. This section has three aims: firstly, an analysis of the bill itself; secondly an analysis of why the PVV voted against the bill; and finally an analysis of the extent to which voting against the bill harmed LGBTIQ emancipation.
To address the research question, the theoretical phenomena are examined in the theory section. These theories help to possibly explain why the PVV voted against the bills. But to further understand why they would have voted in a certain way, the bills are examined to make clear what was up for voting and what was possibly at stake by voting against them.
The information about these five bills is coming from a secondary source: the government’s website with all the information about bills, laws, amendments and so on. The second part of the analysis is aimed to understand why the PVV voted against the bills and to which extent homonationalism was used as an argument. I have reached out to the PVV by sending them an email with my questions and calling them multiple times. My email has been sent to the employee responsible for LGBTIQ emancipation policy, but unfortunately, the PVV wasn’t willing to cooperate in this research paper, or at least they did not respond or contacted me. So, to answer the research question, the debates on the different bills are examined, and statements on why they voted against the bills are abstracted from these documents and debate recordings.
Case
The case study used in this paper is focused on the volatile voting behavior on bills concerning the LGBTIQ issues and their emancipation. The timeframe which has been examined was: Government Rutte II (2012-2017). As aforementioned, this case study will mainly focus on the volatile voting behavior of Geert Wilders his party (PVV), because of their contradictory views on this topic.
Geert Wilders is founder and leader of The Dutch party: Partij Voor de Vrijheid (PVV). Wilders himself is the only official member of the organization and dominates the political strategy and the articulation of the party program and ideology (Vossen 2011: 179-180). Geert Wilders started his career as a member of the Dutch liberal party: Volkspartij voor Vrijheid en Democratie (VVD). Later, his political views changed towards a more Radical Right-Wing populist rhetoric. He shifted his focus towards Islam, as a totalitarian ideology which forms a threat to western democracy (idem: 181-183).
While Rutte II was in government between 2012-2017, there were ten bills concerning LGBTIQ emancipation issues. Every bill will be discussed below, as well as the voting behavior of the PVV. This will give some important background information for the rest of this study.
The first bill is dated from 2012 and was aimed to end the phenomena of the
weigerambtenaar; a civil servant who refuses to marry same-sex couples because of his or her
own beliefs and feelings of confliction concerning their religious conflictions. This bill was passed and the PVV voted for this bill (Tweede Kamer 2012a).
The second bill dated from 2012 as well and was aimed to make lesbian parenting possible by law, so the non-biological mother would be a judiciary mother as well without the need to adopt. The PVV voted for this bill, and the bill got passed (Tweede Kamer 2012b, 2012c).
The third bill is dated from 2013 and aimed to evaluate education in sexual diversity in schools. Educating children in sexual diversity is important for sexual resilience, a safe school environment, and tolerance for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender children. Educating these themes are obligated in schools since 2012. This bill proposed to evaluate if and how these themes are educated in schools every five years. The PVV voted against this bill, but it got passed anyway (Tweede Kamer 2013a).
The fourth bill is dated from 2013 as well and is aimed to end the possibility to discriminate towards gay and lesbian students and teachers, by refusing them to work or go to school in a religious institution. Religious schools had the right to discriminate on the grounds of freedom of religion. But since this bill got passed, these religious schools were no longer allowed to discriminate on grounds of sexual preference. The PVV voted for this bill (Tweede Kamer 2013b).
The fifth bill from 2013 aimed to make it easier to transition to the other sex for transgender and intersex citizens. Prior to this bill, transgender and intersex citizens had to be over 18 to transition to the other sex. This bill proposed to lower that age minimum and the conditions under which an individual could transition to the other sex. The PVV voted against this bill, but it got passed (Tweede Kamer 2013c, 2013d).
The sixth bill dated from 2014 is from party leader Geert Wilders himself. This bill aimed to let the government publicly acknowledge the dangers of Islam for women and homosexuals, and mark the Islam as a dangerous ideology. The bill got refused by the majority, but the PVV voted in favor (Tweede Kamer 2014).
The seventh bill dated form 2015 and aimed to stop registration of sex when it’s not necessary. This bill is initiated because a lot of transgender and intersex citizens experience the gender registration as uncomfortable. Therefore, when someone’s sex does not really matter,
the government shouldn’t ask for it anymore. This bill got passed, but PVV voted against the bill (Tweede Kamer 2015a).
The eighth bill dates from 2016 and is aimed to protect LGBT, Christians and other marginalized groups of asylum seekers in asylum centers who are in danger. The asylum seekers who are unsafe because they are threatened by others will be relocated to another safe and private place. This bill got passed but the PVV voted against this bill (Tweede Kamer 2016a).
The ninth bill dated from 2016, and was aimed to stop public financing foundation Hart van Homo’s. This foundation states that loving someone of the same sex is a sin. The Dutch government treats everyone equally, straight or homosexual. But this foundation and its beliefs are against this principle of equality and against our constitution. The initiator asked for an immediate stop on public funding of this foundation through subsidy. This bill got passed and the PVV voted for this bill (Tweede Kamer 2016b).
The tenth bill dated from 2016, and aimed to make HIV prevention medication (PrEP) available for men who have sex with men. This medication is successful in preventing new infections. Countries like The United States, Canada, France, Norway, South-Africa and Australia already made this medication available for men who have sex with men. The bill got refused and the PVV voted against the bill as well (Tweede Kamer 2016c).
At the end of government Rutte II, there have been ten bills concerning LGBTIQ emancipation issues. Five out of ten of these bills were voted against by the PVV. This is remarkable because sometimes the party looks out for the LGBTIQ emancipation by calling the Islam a threat to it. The sixth bill is an example of this. But in a lot of other cases, the party voted against the emancipation of LGBTIQ citizens.
But there is a second reason why the volatile voting behavior of the PVV is interesting. Besides the three Christian parties: Christen Democratisch Appel (CDA), Staatkunding
Gereformeerde Partij (SGP) and the Christen Unie (CU), all the other parties voted in favor of
almost all the bills concerning LGBTIQ issues (Rainbowvote 2017). This is interesting because other parties are voting in favor of LGBTIQ emancipation, but are not using the strong arguments the PVV uses: the homonationalist argument.
In the Netherlands, besides the Christian parties, all the parties supported almost all the bills. This shows that a party is either pro or con LGBTIQ emancipation. Especially the PVV does look like a party that is pro LGBTIQ emancipation because they are blaming the intolerant Islam for the current state of the emancipation of LGBTIQ citizens (Tweede Kamer 2014). But the party is also keeping the Islamic immigrants responsible for limiting further emancipation, and violence against LGBTIQ citizens (PVV sd). The striking thing is when the party had the possibility to improve the LGBTIQ emancipation, they voted against half of the bills. So, in consequence, it seems like the PVV has another strategy behind their voting behavior than just supporting LGBTIQ emancipation. This makes the PVV an interesting case to better understand how homonationalism has been used in the Netherlands.
Analysis
To further analyze how the PVV used homonationalism, and to get a better understanding of why the party, despite their arguments, voted against these bills, the five bills where the PVV voted against are examined. I chose to analyze only these five bills because this also shows why that voting behavior harmed LGBTIQ emancipation. In consequence, I stated why that specific voting behavior is harmful to the LGBTIQ marginalized groups and what that does to the values of freedom and equality.
This part of the paper explains three parts of each bill. Firstly, I focus on why these bills are chosen over the other. Secondly, it will explain why the PVV voted against these bills. And finally, I explain why voting against these bills is bad for the emancipation of de LGBTIQ
citizens and what potential threats they could have diminished, especially because some bills got refused.
The first bill which has been examined is the one about LGBTIQ education in schools. Equal values for LGBTIQ citizens are not accepted in middle- and high schools (Kuyper 2015: 22). Educating values like equality and LGBTIQ emancipation in schools could be useful to create a safer environment for LGBTIQ youth. Education could play an important role in creating a society where LGBTIQ citizens and their civil rights are being acknowledged. That is why this specific bill was very important for furthering emancipation of LGBTIQ citizens. This could have been an opportunity for the PVV to show their support for a government-led program to help LGBTIQ emancipation, but they did not.
In absence of a clear statement on why the PVV voted against this bill, I used statements from the debate on gay emancipation a prior to this bill. PVV politician Van Klaveren stated that all the other parties and government Rutte II (2012-2017), are refusing to name the Islamic citizens as a negative influence on gay emancipation. By focusing on the Islamic citizens, he and his party are claiming that the Islamic ideology is the biggest obstacle to further LGBTIQ emancipation (Tweede kamer 2013f). But also, the party is framing the issue in a certain way which meets their prespective. By calling the Islam the problem, he is indirectly saying that education will not help, because the problems are inherent to the Islamic ideology and in contradiction to Dutch core values. In a response, the PVV came up with their own bill, which has been discussed in the case section bill number six (Tweede Kamer 2014). I argue that they voted against the bill because they want to put a stop to immigration, and this is another argument on why they want that to happen; because the Islam is a threat to ‘our’ gays.
Lisette Kuyper (2015), published a research report on experiences of and stances on lesbian, gay, bisexual and heterosexual youth in The Netherlands. She showed that lesbian, gay and bisexual youth have lower self-esteem, suffer more of psychological and behavioral
problems and are more suicidal than their heterosexual peers (Kuyper 2015: 95-100). The differences between the results of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth on the one hand, and the heterosexual youth on the other hand, are worrisome.
Possible explanations for these differences between lesbian, gay, bisexual and heterosexuals are the situations at home and in schools. The lesbian, gay and bisexual youngsters report more often that they connect less with teachers in a supportive relationship and are more often victims of bullying (idem 101). Because a lot of lesbian, gay and bisexual youth does not experience school as a safe environment, it is especially important to teach youngsters in school about LGBTIQ emancipation.
A possibility is that broader support for LGBTIQ emancipation will lead to actual improvement of LGBTIQ emancipation. The fact that PVV voted against this bill, shows that they are more concerned with articulating their anti-immigration/ anti-Islam stances than they are with LGBTIQ youth and their well-being. In consequence, they voted against further emancipation and by proposing their own bill number six (Tweede Kamer 2014), they showed what is important to them, anti-Islam and anti-immigration stances. Despite the fact that they could have supported this bill as well, if they wanted to improve LGBTIQ emancipation. The fact that with the PVV, only the SGP and the ChristenUnie voted against this bill, shows how their stance on this issue diverged from the rest (Tweede Kamer 2013a).
The second bill was about the safety of LGBTIQ asylum seekers in asylum centers who were threatened by other asylum seekers because they were LGBTIQ individuals (Tweede Kamer 2016a). The safety of the LGBTIQ individuals is so important is because they face persecution and violence all around the world (Grungras, Levitan & Slotek 2009: 41). They eventually escape from the violence and are potentially being threatened again for the same reason they escaped their home-country.
This bill is so important because the Netherlands has always been a strong protector of LGBTIQ rights and to further improve the emancipation, safety for these individuals is important. The fact that LGBTIQ asylum seekers are not even safe in the Netherlands is worrisome. This bill suggested keeping LGBTIQ asylum seekers who have been threatened in an extra safe place. This would show off the Netherlands best side, by looking out for everyone’s LGBTIQ rights, also those of asylum seekers. If the PVV would have voted for this bill, they could have shown how much they cared about LGBTIQ individuals, and that their safety is important. But they did not vote in favor.
A clear statement of the PVV on the bill is absent, so in order to try and explain why they voted against the bill, statements from a debate have been used to create a certain understanding of what they thought. Van Klaveren states that the unsafe situations in asylum centers for Gay asylum seekers are unacceptable. But again he refers to the Islam as a source of violence against the gay asylum seekers. By doing this, he presents the problem in a ceratin way, and indirectly implies the solution. The focus of government policy should be to arrest and punish those who are breaking the law and they should be sent back to their home country (Tweede Kamer 2016d). The party uses these events in their fight against immigration, so instead of supporting the bill that would protect gay asylum seekers, they are arguing for a stop on immigration. Again, they show their real interest: anti-Islam and anti-immigration stances.
It is interesting how the PVV ignored the fact that the gay asylum seekers were under a threat, the same threat the PVV is trying to save Dutch gays from; the Muslim migrant. At least that is the impression they give. But the fact that the PVV drew a line between Dutch gays who needed protection and gay asylum seekers who do not have to be protected, shows how much they care about the LGBTIQ citizens. Not much in fact, especially not when they are immigrants from an Islamic country.
Instead of using the homonationalist argument in which the Muslim asylum seeker is portrayed as a threat to the Dutch LGBTIQ emancipation, the PVV voted against protection for the LGBTIQ asylum seekers. By doing this they ignored the fact that the asylum seekers from Islamic countries could be LGBTIQ asylum seekers as well, whom should have the freedom to live in a tolerant country like The Netherlands.
In other words, the PVV is referring to a society in which LGBTIQ emancipation should be protected at any time, but when someone escaped from a threat in their home country and needs to live in that emancipated society, that Dutch society is only available to natives. So besides making a distinction between Dutch and non-Dutch citizens like their nativist politics always do, they make a distinction between Dutch and non-Dutch LGBTIQ citizens (Bracke: 2012: 245). And the non-Dutch LGBTIQ citizens are not offered that special position of being higher in rank than non-natives like the homonationalist argument (Puar 2007: 39). Even though they are LGBTIQ citizens.
This difference between native and non-native LGBTIQ citizens is something Puar (2007) does not refer to in her homonationalism theory. The theory is about including LGBTIQ citizens and, by doing that, placing them higher in rank than ethnic others, native as well as non-native ones. It could be argued, that the PVV takes this argument to the next level by only including Dutch LGBTIQ citizens and despite Puar (2013), her statement that her theory is not meant as racist, the PVV applies it in a racist way.
This shows again how they applied the homonationalist argument, in which LGBTIQ individuals are the ones in need of protection. But not being totally honest to that argument, because being native is even more important than being LGBTIQ.
The PVV presents a simple solution to all the problems concerning LGBTIQ individuals: a stop on immigration. During the debate, Van Klaveren was only focusing on the Islam and how that ideology is a threat to the LGBTIQ individuals. Instead of talking about
how their safety could be guaranteed, he only focused on their core argument. This indirectly shows how the anti-immigration/ anti-Islam stances result in the homonationalist argument. A side note worth to be made, in this bills other parties: CDA, VVD and DENK voted against this bill as well (Tweede Kamer 2016a). This means that there was more debate about whether this bill was the right solution.
The third bill was about making HIV medication PrEP, available to men who have sex with men. Each year, a thousand individuals get infected with HIV in The Netherlands. This medication could easily prevent these infections. This would have been a great step forward in direction of more LGBTIQ emancipation. Especially for gay men, who are at risk of getting infected. A few other countries in the world already made PrEP available. In other words, The Netherlands is falling behind on other countries in case of progressiveness on LGBTIQ emancipation. This could have been a moment for The Netherlands to get even with those other countries. If the PVV would have voted in favor of this bill, they could have shown how much they cared about the health of gay men, but instead, they voted against, and the bill got refused as well.
Unfortunately, the PVV has not made any statements on why they voted against this bill. This makes it harder to evaluate their argument. Instead, I tried to use their election program of 2012, which, unfortunately, gives us no new insights because this theme has not been covered yet (PVV 2012). Although their election program of 2017 contains only one page, they refer twice to health-related issues. First, they wanted to abolish the minimum of 385 euros an individual must pay for health (eigen risico). And second, they wanted to roll back budget cuts on home and elderly care, (thuiszorg en ouderenzorg). This gives the impression that an accessible and affordable healthcare system does matter to them (PVV 2017).
The argument made below is based on the theory of self-determination. Deci & Ryan (1991) conceptualized self-determination as follows: a theory that views humans who have a
primary need to autonomy, to feel in charge of their own actions and to have a voice or input in determining their own behavior (idem: 243). To apply this theory to gay men and their wish to have affordable access to PrEP, we need to look at women’s emancipation and their right to self-determination.
Politician of D66 Pia Dijkstra said during a debate:
“a new view on health, would not be talking about the absence of being ill, but about the capability to be in charge over your health” (Tweede Kamer (2016e).
In the Netherlands, the birth control pill is available for women as a means of giving women the right to self-determination over their body and whether to get pregnant or not. The same goes for the right to abortion to end an (unwanted) pregnancy. Women fought for their emancipation and the right to self-determination, they are in charge of their own bodies.
This right to self-determination over your body and your health for gay men is absent in current Dutch society. This means that LGBTIQ emancipation is lacking this possibility for the right to self-determination for gay men. Currently, LGBTIQ organizations are fighting for the same rights for gay men, but without success (COC Nederland 2017b). This bill got refused and in consequence there continues to be a difference in self-determination for women and gay men.
The fact that the PVV voted against this bill is interesting because it seems like they care about accessible and affordable health care, as mentioned above (PVV 2017). But by voting against the bill, they voted against the right to self-determination, but also against accessible and affordable healthcare for gay men, which could prevent them from getting infected with HIV. In consequence, the PVV voted against an important bill who could have made the healthcare system more equal because gay men would have the same right to
self-determination as women have. But by voting against, they showed that they do not really care about LGBTIQ emancipation.
This bill does not show any form of homonationalism. Which makes sense because there is no strike against Islam. But what becomes clear in this case is that the PVV cares about accessible and affordable healthcare, but instead of making it more accessible and affordable for gay men, they voted against. So, in this case, when there is no strike against the Islam, the PVV does not try to improve LGBTIQ emancipation. This shows how LGBTIQ emancipation was not their priority in this debate. But, along with them, a lot of other parties voted against this bill as well: PvdA, VVD, SP, CDA, ChristenUnie, SGP and VrijNederland (Tweede Kamer 2016c). This shows how a lot of parties were less concerned with the health of gay men.
The fourth and fifth bill concern the transgender bill and the abolition of sex registration in government. Both are meant to make official sex registration less uncomfortable for transgender and intersex citizens. The confrontation with the male/female binary, while they feel somewhere in between the sexes, or are in transition to the other sex, is uncomfortable. These two bills aim to make life for transgenders and intersex citizens less uncomfortable and easier to transition to the other sex. This could have been a great opportunity to show how the PVV cared about these citizens and could have improved their lives and emancipation.
In a debate about the transgender bill, PVV politician Van Klaveren stated that the party is against the bill because they think that transgender and intersex citizens should not be able to change their sex in their passports, without physically going into transition to the other sex, just because they feel like they are the other sex. He asked the other politicians where they should draw a line then, because what if someone is fifty years old, but feels a lot younger. Should he or she be able to change his or her age as well? Someone’s sex should correspond to the physical reality, not just to someone’s subjective experience (Tweede Kamer 2013e).
The PVV was absent during the debate about the abolition of sex registration (Tweede Kamer 2015b). This makes it hard to get a clear statement on why they voted against the bill. But because they made a firm statement about the transgender bill, it could be possible that they think about this bill in the same way. Because your sex is something physical observable, there is no need to abolish sex registration and, therefore, they did not feel the urge to attend that debate.
The problem with these two bills and the fact that the PVV voted against the bills concerns Heteronormativity.
“Heteronormativity refers to the ways in which gender ideologies are constructed to
position heterosexuality as natural and normal, while same-sex sexualities are rendered other and therefore abnormal” (Donaldson 2015: 132).
But these gender ideologies are also constructing the male-female binary in which you could be only one of the two. Gender fluidity, transgenders, and intersex citizens are not included in these ideologies.
The problem with heteronormativity, which is the standard in the Netherlands, is that all other identities are measured along heteronormative standards. Everything that does not conform to these standards is deviant. And this binary is uncomfortable for those who do not fit in (idem: 133). Also, the division between men and women makes the gender system hierarchical, which favors masculinity and heterosexuality. In consequence, femininity and homosexuality are devaluated (Schilt & Westbrook 2009: 443), and therefore the system continues to be unequal. If the government sticks to the gender binary, heterosexual gender norms are left unchallenged and reproduced which leads to a society in which transgender and intersex citizens do not feel at home (Donaldson 2015: 133).
The fact that it’s hard to transition to the other sex shows how heteronormative biases work through policy, because of the assumption that only two sexes exist. The PVV voted against these bills and by doing so, they tried to keep heteronormative gender roles unchallenged in which an exclusionary environment for transgender and intersex citizens was left intact. By doing that, they voted against a freer society, in which every individual could live the live he or she wants in the sex they feel like to be. It also harms equality because transgender and intersex citizens are not equal to the law; they must adjust to the heteronormative gender binary.
In this case, it becomes clear how apathetic the party responds to gender-related issues. The fact that Van Klaveren compared transgenders and their issues to someone who feels younger, shows their lack of empathy. Instead of trying to understand how transgender and intersex citizens feel, and listen to their needs, they just voted against because there would be a risk of fraud. Again, in this case, there is no strike against the Islam, and the party voted against the bill. This shows that when a bill is not concerning an Islam-related issue, there will not be a homonationalist argument of course. It also shows that in the absence of an Islam-related issue, taking a chance on improving emancipation is not something done by the PVV. ChristenUnie and SGP voted against the transgender bill as well (Tweede Kamer 2013c, 2013d), and ChristenUnie, SGP, DENK and VrijNederland voted against the bill to abolish sex registration (Tweede Kamer 2015a).
To get a better understanding on the voting behavior of the PVV, I used data of the national electoral survey of 2012 (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek 2015). This research paper offers some insights into the stances of the PVV electorate and puts the results of this paper in bigger perspective. There were two questions regarding homosexuality, in which the PVV electorate scored lower or higher than most other parties. The first question was if homosexuals would be allowed to adopt, and in this case, 63% of the PVV electorate voted yes, on average
the respondents answered yes by 71%. The second question was if gay marriage should be abolished, in this case, 17% of the PVV voters said yes, on average the respondents answered yes with 12%. (Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek 2015: 135).
The differences in percentages are even bigger if we would not include the Christian parties who vote against because of their religious beliefs. What becomes clear from this data is that the electorate of the PVV is rather conservative on these stances compared to the electorate of most other parties. This makes it easier to understand why the PVV is not clearly pro or con LGBTIQ emancipation like most parties, and in consequence, makes it more plausible to assume that the PVV is using the LGBTIQ agendas a tool against Islam.
The analysis above showed how the PVV applied homonationalism in their politics to support their anti-Islam and anti-immigrant stances. It also became clear that more often they did not vote in favor of LGBTIQ emancipation. I think this research showed how their volatile voting behavior could be explained through their strategy to frame events in a certain way, in which the Islamic immigrant is always too blame. In consequence, this leads to their rational strategy in which they are trying to attract votes. And, ‘our’ gays against ‘them’ the intolerant Islamic immigrants works well for them, partly because so many gay men voted for the PVV (Wekker 2016: 156).
But the fact they are betraying the trust of the LGBTIQ voters is interesting. Because the PVV is a populist party who are showing their aversion to the dishonest elite and calling themselves the actual voice of the people. But the analysis shows how the PVV is being dishonest about their stances on LGBTIQ emancipation, and in consequence betray the trust of the LGBTIQ voters who thought the PVV was protecting their rights.
This paper aimed to be a case-study which showed how homonationalism has been applied by the PVV. The interesting part is that the PVV applied these homonationalist arguments in debates, but still voted against the bills. This paper also tried to show how this homonationalist argument has only been used to attract votes in their vote-seeking strategy. Instead of improving LGBTIQ emancipation, the party used the LGBTIQ emancipation agenda for their own benefit, a strategy which is, in my opinion, harmful. Because they pretend to look out for LGBTIQ emancipation, but in fact, they only voted in favor half of the times when it did well for their own strategy.
Throughout this paper, I tried to show how LGBTIQ citizens are being discriminated against, threatened, bullied and harmed in other ways. These ten bills could possibly have made a difference for LGBTIQ citizens. By changing the status quo and including LGBTIQ citizens into the heteronormative framework. Luckily most of the bills got passed, despite the fact that the PVV voted against them.
These results show why the PVV voted against these bills: not because they were rooting for even better bills which would be better for LGBTIQ citizens and their emancipation, but because they just did not care and there was no benefit for them in their fight against the Islam or because their heteronormative assumptions were leading, which in consequence led to apathy to the situation of these marginalized groups.
As showed above, the voting behavior of the PVV has been harmful to the freedom and equality values of LGBTIQ citizens in different ways. The most illustrative bill is the second one about gay asylum seekers. This bill and their statement on it shows how the party views freedom: as a right that belongs to the natives, especially to the gays who needs to be protected from the Islamic immigrants. But the same freedom does not apply as a valid argument when other bills are up for voting.
The same goes for equality, because equality for gays matter only if it is threatened by Islamic immigrants. But equality is not worth a vote when a transgender asks for equal rights to live the sex they experience to be, or when a gay man wants the same right to self-determination as women enjoy.
Discussion
The analysis shown in this paper creates a certain perspective on how the PVV views LGBTIQ emancipation issues. The paper is based on what party members said during debates on the different issues, and bills and party programs. But unfortunately, despite the efforts on my side, the PVV was not willing to cooperate in this research paper. This means that all information and statements on bills and issues had to be abstracted from sources like debates and other press releases of the party. This may, or may not, have an effect on the results.
Unfortunately, I wish I could have provided more certainty and clearance on the question which argument came first: the anti-immigration/ anti-Islam stances which are leading to the homonationalist argument, or the homonationalist argument which leads to anti-immigration anti-Islam stances. The analysis shows that the anti-anti-immigration/ anti-Islam stances are prior to the homonationalist argument. Especially the fact that the PVV electorate showed a more conservative stance on gay parent adoption and gay marriage, strengthens my argument. But despite this all, we will not be certain, because the PVV did not cooperate.
Four out of the five bills the PVV voted against, got passed anyway. So, it could be argued that the actual harm the PVV did to LGBTIQ emancipation, is rather limited. However, the argument I tried to make is that not so much the actual harm is worrisome. It is rather their rhetoric that is harmful. Because they are using the agenda of marginalized groups, for their own benefit, but in the end, leave LGBTIQ citizens hanging when the emancipation of these
groups could be improved. They pretend to look out for LGBTIQ emancipation, but they do not actually do that. They betray the trust of these groups who have voted for the PVV, by pretending to care about them. And especially this, the betrayal of their trust is harmful and dishonest.
By doing this research I aimed at two things. At first, the analysis of the case-study on the PVV in the Netherlands showed that homonationalism is an argument that the PVV uses more often. This strengthens Jasbir Puar (2007), her theory on how homonationalism by a Radical Right-Wing populist party in the Netherlands works. It also showed two sides. On the one hand, the PVV indeed used homonationalist arguments in a racist way in case of the LGBTIQ asylum seekers. In another way than Puar (2007), presented her theory. On the other hand, the PVV used homonationalist arguments but still voted against the bills. This shows how a party can apply homonationalist arguments against Islam, but still vote against bills to improve the situation of LGBTIQ citizens, because they are not so much concerned with their emancipation.
Secondly, this analysis showed the possible hypocrisy laying in populist parties who claim to be the voice of the people against the dishonest elite. Because the PVV betrayed the trust of the LGBTIQ voter, by voting against their emancipation, but still pretend to look out for them by calling the Islam the problem. I think this shows clearly how even a populist party can be a lying elite.
In further research, it would be advised to examine the other five bills which were voted in favor by the PVV. The arguments they have used to vote in favor could show a different perspective on their stances on LGBTIQ emancipation issues. Unfortunately, due to lack of resources, I had to narrow it down.
Further research should also explore the possibilities on how to transform the heteronormative assumptions which are underlying the policy process. Because real LGBTIQ
emancipation does not mean assimilating to the heteronormative gender roles and including them in the existing normative frameworks, emancipation means being free to live your life, in a society in which every life is equal to the life of others.
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